ANGEL BLUE [1]

LEAD 20: wood you?

      I put three pills into my mouth and swallow them with a mouthful of piss-black coffee. My eyes are most likely the size of saucers and my hands keep twitching restlessly even though I actually got a decent night’s sleep on Blake’s couch last night.

      “I can’t believe she actually went down on him,” Banks is saying between my zoning out in conversation, “like I mean seriously, that girl doesn’t even have a personality―and watching her trying to play Pool was like watching cows mate.”

      I’m too preoccupied with the new evidence Snag decided to call me into see at 6 A.M. My ego is still torn up over Sam’s admission to shagging Amanda Jane, and I haven’t spoken to him since―which has been (to the precise time), 96 hours, 14 minutes and 30 seconds. Anyway, the evidence is distracting me from my failure of a maybe-partner.

      Snag found a shoe impression on Derek’s shoulder blades when he re-examined the body in search for Vrykokolas bites. The imprint was a circular bruise, smaller than a dime and Trace came back with alkyds, linseed oil, polyurethane, turpentine and Shellac. This means that a floor or wooden surface had to have been stepped on when in the drying process―I knew too well what the photo of the dint was―a heel print. And I bet ten dollars that they match to a pair of FBI red pumps.

      However, it must’ve been done before Banks and Derek were put in the warehouse. The evidence collected by the crime scene techs all deduced that the only people to have been in the warehouse (recently) were: Derek, Banks, Luke, Nate, Jax, Sam and I. That being said, I have a hunch that Helena could’ve taken her shoes off while entering the premises, kicked Derek and then sauntered out.

      I’m having Joseph and the techs in the lab run Dad and Helena’s credit card records for wood varnish but they most likely paid in cash so tracking down the hardware store will be all the more harder. I couldn’t just go up to Dad either and say, ‘your girlfriend is under suspicion of Derek’s murder, give me her shoes’.

      “I didn’t think Mr Vanilla was that stupid either, ew he’s probably got herpes,” Banks continues her pointless tirade that only kills my non-existent balls in the afterlife, they’re rotting in hell as we speak. She won’t let it go and I allow her to rant about it some more, “I swear he was going to bust a few moves on you but since he’s with that…I wouldn’t want to even touch his gun.”

      “He said they were together, past tense,” I say and scoop the skin out of my coffee that’d developed during its neglect.

      “Were together my arsehole, if they were past tense he wouldn’t have taken her to Four Horsemen or allowed her to paw at him like he was a scratching post. When you pissed off on the corner with Blake for a cigarette, the tart practically threw herself at Mr Vanilla Latte,” Banks finishes the half of my raspberry Freon that I hadn’t bothered touching, “to say I’m disappointed is a big understatement.”

      “Well I won’t be working with him at all so AJ can do whatever she wants with him,” I take another sip of my coffee and sigh. The more I think about it, I can still feel the constriction in my chest―why did Sam have to tell me about it? I was stupid to ask that question in the first place.

      “He still doesn’t know, does he?” Banks queries.

      I busy myself with my hands for a while just to circumvent the culpability. I notice what Banks is wearing. Since she’s off the Desk Squad (for the meantime) she’s in a red button-up, black suit jacket and black slacks. Banks if fire and I’m ice in my white button-up, jacket and slacks. She scratches her close-cropped afro and raises a brow at me in silence; I just divert my gaze out the French windows.